In the future American society will look back at this behavior with the same shame and embarrassment we look at how black people were treated in much of our history. These people disgust me. How can we talk about equality and freedom, and then turn and enact this kind of legislation?

all prigressices [sic] care about isnthis [sic] income gap! they don’t lime [sic] to focus on the overall picture. the fact is the poor are the richest poor in history. they are much better off than they were even 30 years ago. progressivrs [sic] want everybidy [sic] poorer so long as the gap is smaller.

I’ve never watched the critically acclaimed show The Wire. No particular reason—just never got around to it like most TV and film. I simply don’t have the time. But I’ll take critics and fans alike at their word when they say it’s a fantastic show. I believe it’s essentially a police drama about inner city life in Baltimore. The show’s creator, David Simon, was recently in Sydney, Australia, participating in something interestingly named the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. And what he had to say about the divide in America between rich and poor was dangerous indeed. It was in fact just the truth, but that’s the most dangerous thing these days. We prefer lies.

Nothing but unreality is real any more. That shouldn’t be a particularly controversial statement in terms of the global economy (and a few other areas, but that’s another topic) because for the past five years that economy has been defined by rackets. The most persistent of the accompanying messages is that we are in “recovery,” despite evidence of such being almost completely absent from any average person’s day-to-day life. The trick, of course, is to recognize that the “recovery” applies to the wealth of the already wealthy, who have indeed moved from one high to another.

It’s primarily the U.S. Federal Reserve that has enabled this with its quantitative easing and zero interest rate policy, but in Europe the European Central Bank and Bank of England have done the same, as has the Bank of Japan. It’s a group effort, really. But sometimes the messaging hits new highs (lows?) of contradictory hilarity, threatening for a brief moment to pull back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz. A chuckle-worthy example comes from Bloomberg.

If these practices set forth by our government prevents another 9/11 then I say bless them. I don’t understand the commenters here and elsewhere who blast the government. And to those who say these are reminiscent of the McCarthy hearings you are wrong. The so called Communists of the 50’s who were held accountable for their actions wanted to take down the country, they spied on their country for the enemy. IF [sic] that idealogy [sic] sits well with you then why don’t you move to Russia.[sic]

Time to get real here folks. All the hysteria needs to die down. If you voted for Bush or for anyone else during his 2 terms then you helped create the government that approved the Patriot Act. This is of your own doing. Don’t sit there and pretend like this is new. I personally supported the Patriot Act and I still do. It wasn’t an issue when Bush was in office but suddenly it is for Obama.

So let’s say we dismantle government electronic surveillance. How do our security agencies root out threats? By waiting around for someone to call in a tip? You guys are living in a world of fantasy. The terrorists would have open season on us.